Турско кино извън мелодрамата
Turkish Cinema beyond Melodrama

Summary/Abstract: The text is a contribution to the debate about the New Turkish Cinema, one of the most interesting phenomena in contemporary European film culture. Analyzing the historical context in which this trend has appeared two decades ago, I focus on the works of its most prominent representatives. My objective is to outline the common aesthetic characteristics of the movement, which emerged in 1995 with the screening at the Cannes film festival Nuri Bilge Ceylan's short movie "Cocoon" ["Koza"]. Ceylan pioneered a new style, which gained momentum with his next films "Kasaba"/"The Small Town" (1997), "Mays sikintisi"/"Clouds of May" (1999), and "Uzak"/"Distant" (2002), with the works of Semih Kaplanoglu ("Yumurta"/"Egg", 2007; "Süt"/"Milk", 2008; "Bal"/"Honey", 2010), of Özkan Alper ("Sonbahar"/"Autumn", 2008), and of Selim Gunes ("Kar Beyaz"/"White as Snow", 2010), to mention the leading figures of the movement and their principal works. Ceylan, Kaplanoglu, Alper, Gunes, and many of the youngest Turkish directors broke radically not only with the melodramatic tradition of the Turkish cinema, but also with the established models of art-cinema, making films with a simple and minimalist dramatic structure. These modern Turkish writers-directors rejected categorically overdramatic clichés and sensational intrigues to concentrate in their works on the ordinary people and on the course of everyday life. They even refuse to ponder on social issues, seeking to accomplish an all-embracing picture of being. The most serious ambition of the directors of the New Turkish Cinema is the quest for substantial values. Thus they have developed an identifiable cinematic style, based on a static camera, long takes, and the perfect use of natural light.

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